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". I don't think there is a number disagreement problem with the three entities, it's simply that I would normally say either "The carriage held but ourselves and Immortality" or The carriage held none but ourselves and Immortality."
Uh, Max, reread Wordwinds post. Hey Drow, welcome, I agree but good poets rarely write words with a singular reason.
Remember the game How many is in the carriage?
(A) The carriage held but ourselves and immortality: THREE.
(B)The carriage held none but ourselves and immortality:
THREE.
(C) The carriage held but just ourselves and immortality: TWO. Immortality is condition that "I" and "Death" possess.
PS: Max did you know that New Zealand is the only country on Earth that doesn't have crows? John Wattie, New Zealander, Radiologist, Photographer, Birdlover, Marrier of a maori girl, told me that in 1973. If you get the chance look him up and tell him that his caving friends in Birmingham said "Hi!".
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I like the word "just" because of its inherent humility.
"just ourselves"--here juxtaposed with "immortality..."
Death and the "I" here are just...well, just. And just the end points of life--but, ah, immortality--that's altogether different! That's the great concept, the great intuitive leap, all the hope and faith!
Emily's use of "just" is both reverberant with humility and even has a tang of "justice" itself--but that's probably an overreading on my part. Still, I can see what's just in her "just."
Just procrastinating here,
WordOtherWorldly
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(C) The carriage held but just ourselves and immortality: TWO. Immortality is condition that "I" and "Death" possess.
max, in the world of computer science this is known as the "exclusive but".
either that, or the third person has gone up in a whiff of smoke.
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(A) The carriage held but ourselves and immortality: THREE.
(B)The carriage held none but ourselves and immortality:
THREE.
(C) The carriage held but just ourselves and immortality: TWO. Immortality is condition that "I" and "Death" possess.
I can't get the distinction you are making.
I can see the distinction between C and the other two (in A and B immortality is personified and thus a third passenger and in C it is just a trait that they share, like wearing black). It's the difference between A and B that I don't see.
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old hand
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Dear Max, After sending my last post, I thought, Hmmm? Maybe Max will misinterpret my crow remark. Then I thought, what the heck, maybe New Zealanders don't even use the phrase "eating crow"
This morning I was reading Bird Brains: The Intelligence of Crows, Ravens, Magpies, and Jays. The " ...crows are in every country but New Zealand" part reminded me of Dr. Wattie, which reminded me of you, therefore the comment.
Death has just picked up Emily in his carriage.
Add a comma to the line ...but just ourselves, and (ah yes) immortality.
Good day from up here,
Milo.
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the poem capitalises Immortality
I don' know nuthin bout no steenkin poem, I uz jus interpeting milum fer ya. Bes I cuud anyways.
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...to send the very best": Maya Angelou is now working for Hallmark Cards. Humorist Andy Borowitz speculates on what dead poets' contributions might have been to the industry of the pre-packaged greeting: Coleridge:In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
But since I don’t make that kind of dough,
Here’s a birthday card from me.For more examples, see: http://borowitzreport.com/archive_rpt.asp?rec=174
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Love it, Elizabeth.  That might have been the original version, had the person from Porlock arrived earlier -- and nowadays, does it sometime seem that Porlock is everywhere? http://www.robertfulford.com/porlock.html
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